A week in Sicily, Italy – mostly Taormina with views of Mt Etna

From Positano, on the Amalfi coast of Italy, we travelled to Sicily. We had a week there (mostly in Taormina). From Positano we hired a driver to return us to Naples airport (a 1ish hour drive), where we took a flight to Palermo, Sicily (approx 3.5 hour flight). After a short stay there, we also hired a driver to take us from Palermo to Taormina (approx 3 hr drive).Photos below: We spent a lot of time in our small hotel’s rooftop space…

View from our hotel looking toward Mt Etna (will check journal and note name later) – this was taken from a shared bar/dining space on the rooftop. The 2nd photo is the same rooftop space which became the breakfast area in the morning. We loved this small hotel!

View from the same rooftop toward the seaside.

Pre dinner drinks in the same space when it became a bar serving happy hour cocktails…we would have been happy to stay here for a month!

the view from our hotel room …small balcony with tea making facilities

Some of the cafes we enjoyed in the old town of Taormina

Taormina is an amazing place…a beautiful old town as can be seen above and at the end of the Main Street an Ancient Greek amphitheatre with views toward both the sea and Mt Etna – spectacular! More about the history of this amphitheatre later + photos of our day trip to Mt Etna as well as a day trip to the seaside (Taormina is on top of a high cliff).

On the day we visited the amphitheatre a live concert was being set up for that evening – this made our visit even more interesting. In the photo you can see the video screen on the right and the sound systems and stage being constructed. We enquired about getting tickets to the concert that evening but they were sold out.

Photo below: This photo looking toward Mt Etna (that is smoke not cloud coming from the volcano!) was taken at a high point not far from the amphitheatre. As I write this I’m aware that this volcano erupted unexpectedly this year (2017), injuring quite a few people. The adventurous photographer in this picture stood there for ages…just taking in the beauty before even thinking about taking photos.

A brief sidetrack…Had me thinking about the way Tony and I approach photography – as amateurs!…

Like the man in the photo below, we often do similar as described above…some people say that taking photos takes the magic away from the moment. We disagree…our preferred way of traveling is to firstly enjoy the moments (often we miss a great photo opportunity by doing that) but after just drinking it all in for a quite a while, we then start to think about the best way to capture the scene or person. Tony is good at giving me technical tips about lighting etc. while I like to play around with different perspectives and compositions. Tony has done some photography courses which focussed more on technical aspects. I’m not one for worrying too much about technical perfection and just shoot what I love in a more haphazard way! I do take some duds so the delete key is my friend!…+ I seek some advice about the technicalities etc. if I’m having a run of dud photos😉

Day trips to the seaside below the town: Lots of pretty, pebbly beaches but rather hard on the feet so it’s worth taking some waterproof beach shoes – there are many for sale in the Taormina shops at quite a good price compared to Australian stores. There were even vendors selling beach shoes along the waterfront!

Photo below: cable cars can take you from the hilltop town of Taormina…I think it was possible to hike down as well – not sure why we didn’t (I’ll check journal). I think we may have lingered over the beautiful breakfast at the hotel, where we had met up with some friends, so we wanted to speed things up that day.

Lots of pretty, pebbly beaches but rather hard on the feet so it’s worth taking some waterproof beach shoes – there are many for sale in the Taormina shops at quite a good price compared to Australian stores. There were even vendors selling beach shoes along the waterfront!